


when you're gone

by spaceface (rowena24)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, Government Conspiracy, Grief, M/M, adam wants shiro back and fights the government: the fic, discussion of terminal illness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-19 22:45:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15520317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowena24/pseuds/spaceface
Summary: Grief-stricken and full of regrets over Takashi's supposed death, Adam finds himself at the center of a cover-up by the Galaxy Garrison.





	when you're gone

**Author's Note:**

> *cracks knuckles* vld staff is cowards and probably won't develop adam so i'm gonna do it before s7 comes out and ruins everything. canon is My City Now.

Adam regretted his last words to Takashi almost as soon as they came out of his mouth.

It wasn’t that they were true. They were. He couldn’t keep doing this. He _couldn’t_. He already lived in fear that one day he would get The Call, that Takashi wouldn’t be coming home. That his muscles seized up, that he crashed, that he was paralyzed, or worse. He knew Takashi didn’t want to just give up because of a diagnosis, and he didn’t want him to either. But there was a difference between fighting a degenerative muscular disease and being plain reckless. This Kerberos thing, this, this was reckless.

Takashi had seemingly decided he wanted to die a hero’s death, billions of miles from home. That was his……..prerogative. His right. Adam just couldn’t sit on their couch, clutch a handkerchief, and watch him do it. They were partners. Takashi, the noble bastard, was the one refusing his help, refusing to listen. So he spoke the truth, closed off his heart to the inevitable, and walked out first. And Takashi let him.

At mission launch, they acknowledged each other with a glance. A nod, standing ten feet apart. The Holt family was having a tearful goodbye in the middle. There was nothing to say. Adam had drawn a line in the sand, and Takashi made his decision accordingly.

Takashi didn’t give him the ring back. Adam didn’t ask. There are things you don’t deny a dying man.

The months passed, and Adam settled into his colder, lonelier existence. He had always found solace in routine, and he did his best to keep his mind off of the pilot of the Kerberos mission. It wasn’t exactly easy, but it wasn’t as hard as it might have been. He did the right thing. He did the right thing, he had to keep telling himself that he did the right thing.

And then, one morning his ex-fiancee was pronounced dead on national television. The cereal bowl fell out of his hand and clattered to the floor. There had been no briefing. No one...no one thought to tell him ahead of time. But why should they have? He had no special relationship to Takashi Shirogane, not anymore. It was a bitter pill to swallow. The words “Pilot Failure” flashing across the screen haunted him. He knew. He knew this would happen, and yet all he could think was, _Why didn’t I try harder to stop him? Why didn’t I plead with him more?_

_Why didn’t I tell him I loved him one last time?_

Adam regretted and regretted and locked himself in his new apartment for two weeks. A call came from Admiral Santos. He told her that he was calling in some personal time, and that if she didn’t like it, the Galaxy Garrison could lose another top pilot, with her ass on the line. The click on the other end was his answer.

At the end of two weeks, he pulled on his uniform and showed up in his office like nothing happened. Iverson almost tried to say something, and whether to chew him out or bumble his way through condolences, Adam didn’t care. One look shut the older man up, and business carried on as usual. He threw himself into his work, in a way he knew probably wasn’t entirely healthy, but he knew sitting in his apartment would be worse. Takashi wouldn’t have wanted him to grieve for long. _Keep your head up, partner,_ he’d say. _There’s still a whole universe out there who needs you._

Adam had to excuse himself. Everyone pretended they could not hear the sobs coming from the bathroom stall, and business carried on as usual.

About a month later, Adam broke out of his work-sleep-work haze and remembered Keith. He felt a pang of regret again. Poor kid probably wasn’t much better off than himself. He had gathered from bits and pieces of anecdotes that Takashi was the closest thing that the kid had to family, after all. He should.....check in. He begrudgingly knocked on Iverson’s door and asked about the cadet’s whereabouts. Iverson looked up at him and snorted.

“Kogane? Couldn’t begin to guess. He’s no longer our responsibility.”

Adam felt his mouth go dry. “What? Since when?”

“He was expelled several weeks ago. You were…..on leave, at the time,” Iverson said. Adam took a step closer and slammed his hand down on the other man’s desk.

“For what reason, Commander?” he asked through gritted teeth. Iverson raised an eyebrow.

“Conduct unbecoming of an officer. As you might recall, _Captain,_ Kogane was a constant disciplinary case. He had already received far too many second chances,” he sneered. Adam could read between the lines. Without Takashi around to bail him out, the higher-ups wanted the troublemaker cadet gone. He shoved his hands in his pockets and left without another word.

No one seemed to have any clue where Keith had gone after being expelled. Social Services was no help. The boy had applied for emancipation on his sixteenth birthday, and being a student at the Galaxy Garrison at the time, his request was accepted. They no longer held responsibility for him, either. It infuriated Adam that the state could just let a boy disappear into thin air. But he had no leads, and eventually no choice but to stop looking. It was another regret to add to the list. 

The days blurred together as he settled back into his cold, lonely routine, in something approximating functionality. He filled out paperwork, he ate, he counseled the senior cadets on their plans post-graduation, he slept. He did not dream.

It was almost a year later when everything came crashing down around his ears once again. An unidentified spacecraft crash-landed in the desert adjacent to Garrison property. The facility was on a level Z9 security alert. After helping secure the perimeter, Adam jumped on a cruiser and hauled ass out to the crash site. The air tingled around him and a tightness crept into his stomach. Explosions went off in the distance and he drove faster. It was natural that he would be on high alert in this kind of emergency situation, but something about this was...different. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something big was coming, waiting for him. He wasn’t sure whether the feeling was dread or anticipation.

When he arrived at the site, the situation was in relative chaos. The ship was unlike anything he’d ever seen before--sleek, angular, black with glowing purple lights. It looked frankly, well, alien. Guards in hazmat suits were swarming the area and instructions were being yelled from every direction to the point where it was impossible to make an individual order out. Adam grabbed the nearest one by the arm and asked them what the hell was going on.

“Unidentified craft landed here, sir. We’re trying to figure out clues about what country’s tech this is, as we speak.”

“What _country_? Open your eyes, Lieutenant. I’m no engineer, but I don’t know any country on this planet who has tech that looks like that.”

“With all due respect, sir, these are our orders.”

“From who, may I ask?” Adam felt his temper rising. He’d been numb for so long, he barely remembered the feeling. This situation, however, was setting off numerous alarm bells in his head already.

“I’m not at liberty to say. This investigation concerns highly classified information.”

Adam sucked his teeth. “Of course it does. Well, return to your duties.” They went at ease but still remained standing next to Adam, their posture uncomfortable and fidgeting, seemingly debating something. He cleared his throat and crossed his arms. “Unless there’s anything else?”

“Sir.” They paused, still deliberating. “I....this may come at the cost of my paygrade, but you deserve to know. The man we took into custody who was piloting this ship claimed to be Takashi Shirogane.” 

Adam’s body went very hot then very cold in a matter of seconds. He nearly dropped to the ground right then and there, but fought to maintain his composure.

“Was it him? Was it really him?” he asked, not caring how desperate he must have sounded.

“I didn’t personally get a look at him, but I have it on good authority Shiro is ali--”

“Where is he.”

“That I, I can’t tell you, sir--” Adam grabbed the younger officer by the front of their suit before they could finish their panicked backtracking.

“ _Where is he, Lieutenant?!_ ”

“He’s no longer here. Now release them immediately, Captain Habib. That is an order,” came a cold female voice from behind him.

Adam slowly dropped his hands and turned around to face the woman, her blond hair impeccably pinned in place and her expression just as rigid. He saluted. “Admiral Santos,” he began, carefully, “Ma’am, would you please clarify what you meant by that first remark?” She looked him over, calculating.

“Since we’re breaking rank and revealing classified information--” The lieutenant jumped at the Admiral’s pointed stare. “--I suppose I might as well enlist your assistance. You can be useful to us. A man claiming to be Takashi Shirogane was indeed in our custody. However, the man was clearly irrational, if not manic, and required sedation. At that time, a group of young men broke in, subdued the guards, and kidnapped the rogue pilot.”

Adam’s mouth went dry. He tasted metal. Takashi was alive. He was alive, he was here. Against all odds, all miracles, he almost had him back. And just like that, he was gone again. Slipped through his fingers, like trying to hold onto a cloud. Pain shot through his chest.

“How? How could our security have--”

“The kidnappers, according to our records, appear to be three of our very own cadets, and one former cadet,” Admiral Santos interrupted. “How they did this is not your concern. I will assign you a patrol and put you at the forefront of our search efforts. I trust that this is acceptable to you, Captain?”

Adam swallowed his suspicions and saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good,” she smiled, all teeth. She turned on her heel and called over her shoulder, “Lieutenant Nguyen, follow me. Now.” The young guard scrambled after her.

Another guard in a hazmat suit appeared at his elbow. “Captain Habib, sir. We’ve already sent three patrol cruisers after the perpetrators, but we lost contact with two. The third has notified us that they lost them over the cliff about 30 degrees southwest of here….”

Adam could barely even hear the guard’s report over the heartbeat thumping in his ears. Takashi. Takashi was here, in this desert. He just had to find these kids and then they could figure everything else out. The rest of the night passed in a blur. He sent out another patrol division to find them, but after two hours they turned up empty. They likely should have crashed in the ravine where the initial patrol cruisers lost them, but there was no wreckage to be found either. Frazzled and frustrated, Adam decided to do a fly-by of the area himself. They had too much ground to cover, and there were too many places to hide in all the rock outcroppings.

Something in the back of his mind was nagging him, though. Despite the surrealness of the entire situation, some things didn’t quite add up. Why had a group of young cadets captured Takashi from Garrison custody? Where could they possibly have taken him? They had little to no personal resources, and no motive.

He requested to see the security footage file before takeoff, and Admiral Santos was clearly busy with other things because they actually handed him a tablet and showed it to him. They also gave him the list of the three cadets currently missing from their barracks during the lockdown. Lance McClain, Pidge Gunderson, and Hunk Garrett--a fighter pilot, navigator, and engineer all currently training together. 

On screen, Adam watched a young man with a scarf tied around his face knock out the guards surrounding Takashi, without any weapons. He certainly had the element of surprise, but the young man was clearly skilled. Not someone easy to take down at close range. When he removed Takashi’s restraints and the scarf from his face, it finally hit Adam. Keith. He was the “former cadet” Santos had mentioned. He couldn’t say for sure, since it had been quite a long time since he had seen him, but it had to be Keith. It had to. A strange wave of relief struck him. Whatever his reasons for doing this, he was fairly confident that the boy had no malicious intent toward Takashi. The other boys were probably his friends back at the Garrison. 

When he quickly pulled up their files on the tablet, sure enough, both Lance McClain and Hunk Garrett were in Keith’s division under Takashi Shirogane as junior cadets. Pidge Gunderson was the odd man out, having been recently admitted. But when Adam examined Pidge’s file further, his blood ran cold. The kid looked almost disturbingly like Matt Holt. A cousin, perhaps? He was never as close to the Holts as Takashi, obviously, but he knew that there was a younger sister, not a younger brother….

Wait.

He pulled up the file on “Katie Holt” and his blood ran cold. Katie Holt, former navigator/techie at the top of her class, was expelled over a single disciplinary infraction. The details of which, when he tried to open them, were classified. Only two months later, this Pidge Gunderson had appeared in the system with glowing recommendations. It didn’t make sense. How could no one have noticed this Gunderson file was an obvious data breach, and the obvious similarities between the cadets? Although frankly, why was Katie Holt expelled in the first place over what appeared to be listed as a minor offense?

“Are you ready for takeoff, sir?” a voice came in through the comms, jarring him out of his thought spiral. He set the tablet down and strapped himself into the pilot seat.

“Y-yes, just about.” Adam flipped a few of the controls and shifted the plane into gear, shaking his head to clear it of its muddied thinking. Something about this smelled foul, but he couldn’t afford to be careless when he didn’t have all the facts. He wasn’t stupid. The Garrison was a military organization, and militaries have secrets. The higher ups would slam the door in his face if they caught a whiff of insubordination from him.

Adrenaline pumped through him as he ascended to the sky, ironically a familiar, welcome feeling. Dawn was barely beginning to break over the horizon.

He would just have to stay one step ahead, is all. He owed it to Takashi. He just had to hope that he wouldn’t end up regretting it.

**Author's Note:**

> \--i chose "habib" as adam's last name because it means "beloved" in arabic. he's mostly egyptian, but he also is part lebanese and palestinian, bc lauren and jds can't stop me.  
> \--i'm flying by the seat of my pants on this fic so i'm not gonna attempt an update schedule, but i will try to push as much as i can out before s7 airs.
> 
> thank you for reading! pls leave a comment....i will love you forever......  
> follow me on tumblr @lesbiantsuyuu


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